Originally Posted by sibley
I'm curious--for those of you who do tracking with your own spreadsheets, what all do you track? In what way has tracking been most advantageous to you? Did you create your own spreadsheet, or do you use something that's out on the market?
I have columns for: Flight number, origin, destination, fare class, base/redeemable miles, elite bonus, booking class bonus, online booking bonus, other promotional bonuses (separate column added for each one as I register), base MQMs, promotional MQMs (again, separate column for each bonus). Then I add columns for non-miles based promotions (such as fly 3 fly free).
I put absolutely
everything in the spreadsheet: flights, dining miles, credit card miles (I actually track every credit card charge in the same spreadsheet and then feed the total into a line item of "unposted AMEX charges"), car rentals, etc.
I reconcile it about once every other week when I'm travelling frequently. You'd be surprised how much of the little stuff gets missed: online booking bonuses, some credit card charges, dining.
Right now, my highly active spreadsheets are for United, Delta, Marriott, Hilton and National Car Rental.